https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-017-4795-8
Regular Article - Theoretical Physics
The Z boson spin observables as messengers of new physics
1
Departamento de Física Teórica y del Cosmos, Universidad de Granada, 18071, Granada, Spain
2
Departament de Física Teòrica, Universitat de València, 46100, Burjassot, Spain
3
Instituto de Física Corpuscular, CSIC-Universitat de València, 46890, Paterna, Spain
* e-mail: jaas@ugr.es
Received:
21
February
2017
Accepted:
27
March
2017
Published online:
12
April
2017
We demonstrate that the eight multipole parameters describing the spin state of the Z boson are able to disentangle known Z production mechanisms and signals from new physics at the LHC. They can be extracted from appropriate asymmetries in the angular distribution of lepton pairs from the Z boson decay. The power of this analysis is illustrated by (1) the production of Z boson plus jets; (2) Z boson plus missing transverse energy; (3) W and Z bosons originating from the two-body decay of a heavy resonance.
© The Author(s), 2017